In the spring of 2006, at the headquarters of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment in Tokyo, Japan, the entire team of the Seventh Development Group occasionally glanced toward the door of their office area, seemingly waiting for something.
Group leader Shizuka Yabuki was an experienced veteran and one of Gamestar's most accomplished employees. He was leading the core team working on the Metal Gear project.
At this moment, they were all waiting for Takayuki to arrive in person.
After nearly three to four months of intense development, they had finally completed the first playable demo of Metal Gear.
Yabuki was the first to relay this good news to Takayuki.
Takayuki immediately replied that he would come the next day to check out their progress.
So, throughout the day, everyone in the team seemed a bit distracted, constantly thinking about Takayuki's arrival.
...
...
The first playable demo was actually quite simple.
The primary goal was to show Takayuki the overall gameplay, including stealth, tactical actions, and executing enemies after silently eliminating them.
All these elements combined would create a unique chemistry.
As for the demo's modeling, they had used general engine assets from the library.
Since the final art style of the game hadn't been fully determined yet, once the demo passed Takayuki's test, they would revisit this issue.
Click.
The door opened, and Takayuki quickly walked in.
Yabuki immediately approached him.
"President, you've arrived!"
Takayuki, looking eager, asked, "Is the demo ready? Where is it? I want to see it now."
"Uh, of course," Yabuki replied, a bit flustered, before immediately signaling for the team to bring out the demo.
Soon, a cart containing a GSX console and a small TV was pushed in, displaying the completed Metal Gear demo.
In the original first generation of the game, Metal Gear was quite rudimentary, as it was from the Famicom era.
In fact, aside from the core gameplay and the story, most of it had been completely remade by Takayuki.
So even though Takayuki didn't impose many development restrictions, he saw this as a great opportunity for his team to build game development experience.
Now, the demo was showcasing graphics equivalent to the PS4-era games, which was already impressive.
"President, although you didn't ask for too many things, we've come up with some methods to assist development, such as the global motion capture system we just developed in the motion capture lab. The entire environment is set to be a motion capture area, and we've already walked through the stealth and assassination process in the game using real actors," Yabuki said proudly.
"And our camera work has been professionally designed; the visual effects are on par with conventional films."
Yabuki was very proud. Takayuki had given them a lot of freedom this time, which had its pros and cons.
The downside was that without Takayuki's guidance, they couldn't be sure if their path was the right one.
But the upside was that they had a chance to imagine freely how to develop a stealth game.
Now, this was the result they had submitted.
Takayuki nodded, his eyes fixed on the screen. He grabbed the controller and started the game.
The first character displayed was a generic face from the engine's asset library.
Takayuki quickly replaced it with Snake's appearance.
Then, as the camera moved, the player could see the surrounding area, which was about 200 square meters, resembling a corridor of some underground facility.
Not far from Snake was a patrolling soldier.
Takayuki moved the controller, and the character stealthily moved out from a hidden corner and quietly approached the soldier from behind.
The character's movements were a little stiff, but this wasn't a big issue. It could be fine-tuned later to make it more immersive.
At this moment, Takayuki nodded slightly. At least the opening was as he had imagined.
Everyone watching Takayuki's nod let out a collective sigh of relief.
Some of the people standing in the back had even shown a relaxed smile, clearly thinking that the first part of the demo had passed.
Next, Takayuki controlled the character to eliminate the patrolling soldier.
The entire sequence of actions was swift and decisive, quickly taking down the enemy.
The patrolling soldier immediately fell to the ground.
Takayuki then made the character spin around in place, as if searching for something, crouching awkwardly. His actions were confusing to watch.
Yabuki was puzzled and asked, "President, what are you trying to do here? Are you aiming for a specific feature?"
He didn't quite understand Takayuki's intention.
Takayuki suddenly realized he had made a mistake...
Whenever he played this kind of game and successfully executed an enemy, he liked to perform this action.
In games like CSGO, doing this after taking out an enemy would be considered a major taunt.
But with AI, he didn't need to worry so much.
Takayuki hadn't realized how immersed he had become in the game, nearly forgetting that he was no longer the same person from his past.
Takayuki cleared his throat twice and said, "Oh, it's nothing. I just noticed that you guys forgot to add a feature for moving the body after execution."
"Moving the body?" Yabuki asked.
Takayuki replied, "Think about it. If other patrolling soldiers find a body, they'll naturally become more alert. This would force players to figure out how to deal with the body, which greatly enhances the game's realism."
Yabuki nodded in understanding, "You're right, President. I didn't think of that."
Immediately, someone started taking notes.
Takayuki no longer needed to focus on the technical details of the game programming.
Just like a director doesn't need to discuss every visual effect detail, Takayuki now just needed to provide the outcome and let the team handle the rest.
The issues Takayuki pointed out were based on his past experiences with stealth games.
He continued controlling the character, guiding it to another cover. Behind the cover, Takayuki crouched down to avoid being spotted by the soldiers ahead.
Then, Takayuki pointed at the screen and said, "Look here, for example, this hidden crate. To make it easier for players to immerse themselves in the game, we can set this crate as an anchor point. As players approach it and press a specific button, they can automatically crouch behind it, like an adhesion function."